I have drunk this tea before, but today I tried blending it with Dragonwell. I am hoping it will be a light and healthy complement to this strongly fruity black tea. Dragonwell has always seemed to me to be the fruitiest of the green teas, so I generally pair it with teas that are a bit stronger on the fruit. So far so good with other experiments.
I steeped the whole thing for about 1 1/2 minutes at a fairly low temperature (I didn’t measure, but it was well before boiling). The steeped leaves smell very vegetal (I would expect that, since black teas generally release all their goodies in one go, whereas the Dragonwell in this mix would just be getting warmed up). The liquid smells quite like I thought it would—not strong, just fruity and somewhat grassy.
As I tend not to like black teas without any sweetener, to the first cup I added about 1/2 a teaspoon of a solid gold honey (a Teavana product, the Hawaiian Lehua Gold). The first sip hinted at fruitiness, but not strongly. After a couple of sips, I don’t get the impression that the Peach Cran-Tango had enough time to release its flavors, because I’m getting a lot of the Dragonwell. Now that it’s cooled off a little, I think I’ll let the mixture steep a tiny bit more and see how that goes with the second cup. Adding about 1/4 a teaspoon of turbinado sugar helped the fruit come out a good deal!
The second cup tasted a lot the same, probably because the water had cooled a good bit. I think what really helps this blend to taste like it should is the addition of sugar, which doesn’t seem to dumb down the Dragonwell at all. Overall, a good blend.
Although this tasting note was mostly about the blend, Peach Cran-Tango is a pretty good tea by itself. I don’t often drink it by itself, but it’s a nice fruit tea if I’m in the mood for a specific fruit flavor, rather than just a vaguely fruity palate.
